By Dave Lahr: Former IBF light heavyweight champion Clinton Woods (42-5-1, 24 KO’s) appears to be at the end of the road after losing a one-sided 12-round unanimous decision to undefeated Tavoris Cloud (20-0, 18 KO’s) last night for the vacant International Boxing Federation light heavyweight title at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Hollywood, Florida.
The final judges’ scores were 116-112, 116-112 and 116-112. Woods, 37, now has a big career decision to make. Before the bout, Woods had mentioned retiring if he lost the fight against Cloud. Well, Woods not only lost but was never all that competitive in the fight.
Now the question is whether Woods will carry out his threat and retire or stick it out a little longer against one of the other three light heavyweight champions Zsolt Erdei, Gabriel Campillo and Jean Pascal. Woods looked good enough to beat anyone of those fighters on Friday night, even though he was handled pretty easily by Cloud.
Woods fought the wrong type of fight against Cloud for the most part. Instead of staying away from the shorter 5’10” Cloud and using a jab on him, Woods stood directly in front of him at close range, trading power shots. That was the wrong thing to do against a power puncher like Cloud.
Woods made an even bigger mistake than that by fighting much of the fight on the ropes from the 6th round on. This made it easy on Cloud, who really isn’t much of a boxer, to land his short power punches. Cloud doesn’t have the longest of reach and reminds me a lot of a cross between Jeff Lacy and Edison Miranda. If you put a fighter in close against either one of those fighters, chances are they’ll do well.
But if you use movement against them, then they have problems. This, unfortunately, was something that Woods failed to do in the fight because he foolishly stood straight up firing shots at Cloud and letting him fight at close range directly in front of Woods.
Cloud ended up staggering Woods in both the 8th and 10th rounds with big power shots. The fight was somewhat competitive in the first six rounds as Woods landed a lot of hooks and uppercuts to the head of Cloud. Woods exposed Cloud’s nonexistent defense during this time.
Some of the shots that Woods threw snapped Cloud’s head around, even though Woods isn’t much of a puncher. I hate to see what will happen to Cloud once he’s in with a puncher with power rather than a mediocre puncher like Woods.
At the end of the 6th round, Cloud landed two hard right hands to the head of Woods. Starting the 7th, Woods’ legs appeared to be gone, as he needed to take frequent rest breaks on the ropes. This allowed Cloud to move in and tee off with his power shots against a stationary target.
Cloud hadn’t looked all that spectacular in the first six rounds when Woods was in the center of the ring. However, with Woods spending more and more time against the ropes, this made it easy for Cloud to land his short power shots.
At 5’10”, Cloud looks small for a light heavyweight and his short arms make him appear even smaller. Unlike Edison Miranda, who has long arms to make up for his 5’10” height, Cloud’s arms appear to very short, almost like alligator arms. By Woods going to the ropes, it basically handed the fight over to Cloud and took away the one advantage that Woods hand in the fight – his height and reach.
In the 10th through twelve, Woods spent a lot of time on the ropes taking big shots from Cloud. Woods threw very little punches after the 8th, and looked like a beaten fighter in the last four rounds of the fight.
After the fight, Cloud has this to say: “Chad Dawson, as long as he’s out of the way, I don’t have anything to say about him. I can understand you having a couple of fights for money, but how can you call yourself pound for pound best in the world and everyone you fight is 40 and over. Come on, Man, fight some young fighters.”
For a fighter that didn’t have anything to say about Dawson, Cloud wasn’t exactly bashful about giving his thoughts about Dawson. Based on what I saw of Cloud last night, as well as in his fight against Julio Cesar Gonzalez, I think Dawson would easily beat Cloud. Dawson is much taller at 6’2″ and faster as well. Cloud would have serious problems with both the speed and power of Dawson. I think Glen Johnson would also beat Cloud.
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